Professor of Public Policy Mark Peterson was one of 16 experts who weighed in on the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in a National Interest article. Millions of Americans are suffering the economic consequences of the pandemic, and small businesses are among the hardest hit. “Small businesses would have been devastated just by the effects of the disease on consumers and their behavior,” regardless of the public health interventions put into place, Peterson said. “What has really been missing is the kind of large-scale and ongoing federal infusion funds to business owners that could have kept their businesses afloat and their employees more financially secure,” he said. “This is a societal crisis in which everyone is harmed by the demise of businesses, and the enormous fiscal capacities of the federal government, including borrowing, should have been marshaled in full force to amortize the burdens of the pandemic’s effects with its potentially multigenerational impacts.”